Obama Makes Announcement of New Zealand Ambassador Pick

The president will reportedly nominate openly gay attorney David Huebner for appointment as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

Press Release Service – Wired PR News – President Barack Obama has chosen openly gay attorney David Huebner for nomination as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Huebner’s Senate confirmation would make him the first openly gay ambassador to be chosen by the current administration and the third to serve in the country’s history.

As noted by the AP, the president’s timing on measures such as repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has brought forth some criticism of the administration from gay activists. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is quoted by the AP as stating of gains made in dealing with some of the issues Obama promised to work on during his presidential campaign, “The president made commitments on those issues — not just, quite frankly, in a presidential race but ran on some of those commitments in a Senate race…They are commitments that are important to him and he is intent on making progress on those issues and is working with the Pentagon to ensure, at least in ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ that we make progress on it.”